DOPL and David Lee Hamblin

The Stipulation and Order Stripping David Lee Hamblin of His License

Investigations in Ritual Abuse has obtained the Stipulation and Order issued by the Utah Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing which stripped David Lee Hamblin of his license to practice as a psychologist. In the stipulation and order, Hamblin waived his right to hearing before the Board, and his right to present evidence or witnesses on his behalf. He admitted to having intimate relationships with several patients during clinical therapy sessions, and he admitted to claiming that the intimacy was therapeutic to his patients.

Hamblin admitted that his conduct constituted “unprofessional conduct” under Utah Code Ann. §58-1-501(2) and Utah Admin. Code R 156-61-502(1998), and he further agreed to an order revoking his license. In the 11th paragraph of the Order, DOPL cited R 502(6)-(10) as the relevant parts of the rule applicable to Hamblin’s behavior:

(6) failing to establish and maintain appropriate professional boundaries with a client or former client;

(7) engaging in dual or multiple relationships with a client or former client in which there is a risk of exploitation or potential harm to the client;

(8) engaging in sexual activities or sexual contact with a client with or without client consent;

(9) engaging in sexual activities or sexual contact with a former client within two years of documented termination of services;

(10) engaging in sexual activities or sexual contact at any time with a former client who is especially vulnerable or susceptible to being disadvantaged because of the client's personal history, current mental status, or any condition which could reasonably be expected to place the client at a disadvantage recognizing the power imbalance which exists or may exist between the psychologist and the client;

It is undisputed that David Lee Hamblin engaged in violations of each of those rules, because he admitted as much during the investigation conducted by DOPL. It is also undisputed because multiple former patients of Hamblin’s detailed sexual contact that extended beyond a breach of professional boundaries to outright rape. There are patients of Hamblin’s who alleged-who IRA has interviewed-who claim that Hamblin forcibly sexually assaulted them in his home office in Provo. This is consistent with the claims of Hamblin’s own daughters, who allege that their father and his friends within the LDS Church of Satan raped a young man in Hamblin’s home office, and that Hamblin attempted to cure homosexuality in his patients by inducing them to sexually assault his daughters.

DOPL Stipulation and Order

DOPL did not perform a thorough investigation beyond Hamblin’s own admitted misconduct, because had they done so, they would have likely discovered additional victims who were Hamblin’s therapy patients. Moreover, had DOPL performed due diligence, they would likely have uncovered Hamblin’s relationship with Ray Noorda and his wife, which led to Noorda donating large sums of money to Hamblin and Hamblin’s alleged accomplice James Warren Flaming Eagle Mooney, a self-styled medicine man who founded Oklevueha Native American Church. Noorda was the CEO of Novell, and his net worth was an estimated $650 million in 1994.

When David Lee Hamblin was arrested for poaching deer for sacrificial rituals, he was driving Noorda’s vehicle. Hamblin had curried favor with Noorda by treating Noorda’s wife Tye during healing circles that centered on the use of peyote. Tye Noorda’s husband credited those circles with his wife’s improving depression and anxiety, and he reportedly gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to James Mooney which Mooney would later use to purchase a home in Benjamin, Utah.

The use of illicit drugs, combined with Hamblin’s syncretizing of priesthood and psychological modalities, would have been a violation of Rule 502(2), which requires psychologists to abide by the ASPPB Code of Conduct, Rules of Conduct C., which explicitly states the following:

IMPAIRED PSYCHOLOGIST. The psychologist shall not undertake or continue a professional

relationship with a client when the psychologist is, or could reasonably be expected by the

board to be, impaired due to mental, emotional, cognitive, psychological, pharmacological,

substance abuse or induced conditions. If such a condition develops after a professional

relationship has been initiated, the psychologist shall terminate the relationship in an

appropriate manner, shall notify the client in writing of the termination, and shall assist the

client in obtaining services from another professional.

Multiple sources have confirmed that Hamblin personally used peyote, and several sources have alleged that Hamblin had a psychotic episode during a visit with the Huichol tribe in Mexico. During this visit, Hamblin allegedly consumed a large quantity of peyote and fled from the tribal ceremony into the desert, only to re-emerge days later. Hamblin’s use of peyote contributed to his own destabilization, and as a facilitator Hamblin showed remarkable recklessness by administering large quantities of peyote to his own children and other minors whose parents had brought them to healing circles.

Hamblin’s administration of peyote to children is corroborated in a 1999 DCFS report, as well as the custody order from Hamblin’s divorce. Despite the fact that his criminal conduct was reported to DCFS and law enforcement, Hamblin was never arrested for giving children a Schedule I controlled substance. As Hamblin’s use of peyote increased, his behavior became increasingly unstable. According to his daughters, Hamblin took a single seminar course on hypnosis and began attempting to hypnotize patients and his children.

The accounts of Hamblin’s patients are unanimous: he was unable to hypnotize any of his patients, but he utilized threats with respect to their desired recovery results to coerce them into agreeing with his claims that they had revealed childhood ritual abuse while under hypnosis. This conduct constituted a violation of Rule 502(16), “using a professional client relationship to exploit a client or other person for personal gain.” David Lee Hamblin was not only providing pseudo-therapy in the form of sexual contact, he was also falsely representing his competency as a hypnotherapist to clients, and utilizing his position as a therapist to bludgeon his clients into acquiescing to his claims that they had revealed ritual abuse.

Hamblin didn’t implant memories of ritual abuse in any patient; instead, he extorted the false admission of ritual abuse through threats and coercion, via his claim that a client who disputed his false narrative would never recover from their homosexuality or gender identity issues. The patients didn’t have a false memory of abuse. They had the choice between opposing a therapist who would potentially physically and sexually assault them in his office, or submitting to that therapist’s false narratives in order to extricate themselves from the threat.

Although Hamblin has no license to practice psychology, he is effectively still providing mental health therapy. Utah Code §58-60-109(1)(a)(i) explicitly identifies the practice of mental health therapy without a license as “unlawful conduct,” and §58-60-111(1) classifies such conduct as a third degree felony. Hamblin’s recent video, entitled Spiritual Session with Disclaimer, shows him performing the therapy his daughters described in their victims statements and to DCFS. That therapy is centered around Hamblin’s theory that we are all made up of billions of parts which must be integrated.

Additionally, multiple former attendees of Hamblin’s healing circles at his protege Eldon Talley’s home describe Hamblin’s utilization of numerous illicit drugs in the context of healing circles that are marketed as de facto mental health therapy, albeit under the guise of religious practice. Those drugs include peyote, mushrooms, and kambo, all of which are illegal. Hamblin’s admission that he engaged in sexual contact with his patients under the guise of therapy should disqualify him from conducting any form of mental health therapy, regardless of how that therapy is presented under a religious cloak.

The fact that Hamblin charges attendees for his pseudo therapy, while also providing them with illicit drugs, ought to provide law enforcement with ample reason to arrest Hamblin and his enablers. Law enforcement has yet to arrest Hamblin for his illicit activities, which are clearly illegal under existing law. It is illegal to possess and distribute a controlled substance, regardless of whether or not one does so under pseudo religious pretenses. The fact that law enforcement has repeatedly failed to enforce the law and hold David Lee Hamblin accountable for his numerous criminal acts has enabled Hamblin to accumulate dozens of victims over the years. Some of those victims were children, and there is no disputing this due to Hamblin’s own words on a recorded phone call with his daughter: “I am sorry for raping you.”

Pretext call

The failure of law enforcement to hold Hamblin accountable for his repeated and willful violations of various laws is inexcusable. The fact that Hamblin has admitted to violating the law on multiple occasions as a therapist, a father who sexually abused and raped his daughters, and as an adult administering peyote to children and other adults, makes the failure of Utah’s law enforcement agencies to secure a conviction against Hamblin even worse. There is no dispute that Hamblin raped his daughter. He apologized for doing so on a recorded line. There is no dispute that Hamblin sexually abused his daughters and forced them to ingest controlled substances: the court in his divorce found he did so, and he admitted to doing so and would later apologize to his daughter for raping her.

His patients did not merely accuse Hamblin of intimate contact in a therapeutic setting; they accused him of sexual assault and rape. Even if Hamblin had not violently raped his therapy patients, his conduct was still a third degree felony under Utah Code §58-60-109 and 111. §58-60-111 made such conduct a felony in 1994, six years before Hamblin was stripped of his license after admitting to his abuse of patients. He was not prosecuted even though he admitted to criminal conduct in 2000.

This is part of a larger patter with Hamblin; one which appears to absolve him of criminal liability for crimes he has openly admitted to committing. The documentation presented by IRA, which was known to law enforcement and various government agencies for at least a decade and a half to twenty five years, paints a picture of a sexual predator who appears to be beyond the reach of the law no matter how much evidence is compiled against him in the form of his own admissions and voluntary statements. There are no innocent explanations. The government will plead incompetence to avoid conviction on corruption, and that is exactly what they have done in their latest bit of theater around the Sheets case.

David Lee Hamblin could- and should-have been sent to prison decades ago, and had law enforcement done its job, they would have likely saved dozens of victims from being abused. There are other victims of David Lee Hamblin, but the net effect of law enforcement’s willful failures to successfully prosecute and convict Hamblin is simple: those victims have no reason to trust a system that lets a man like David Lee Hamblin evade all culpability even with multiple admissions of guilt.

The purpose of a system is what it does, not what it consistently fails to do, and by that standard, the purpose of the legal system in Utah is to allow admitted sexual predators to avoid criminal consequences. David Lee Hamblin is one of the most notorious examples of this. He is not the only example. a